Thursday, 10 January 2008

Bringing order to chaos, the sequel

Peter Hain has now admitted failing to declare £103,156.75 in donations from his failed deputy leadership campaign.

He's published details of each donation, from £1,346 for that Parkhouse club meal to various contributions from business figures.

The small print that will interest the newspapers reveals how some donations were made via third parties - through a think tank called the Progressive Policies Forum.

The Hain team say: "The monies had been previously donated to PPF. When unpaid bills came to light PPF was approached and with the permission of the individual donors concerned the monies were donated to Hain4Labour to meet these debts.

"There is no legal impediment to a person donating money on behalf of someone else the PPERA legislation expressly permits it in paragraph 6 of schedule 7. What is important is that the person or company making the payment informs the donee (in this case Peter Hain) that it is on behalf of someone else and gives particulars to the donee so that the donee can report them.

"This is exactly what has happened in this case in respect of five donations. The actual donors have been correctly reported."

One of the actual donors involved may ring a few bells. His name is Steve Morgan.

It appears that Peter Hain's campaign manager - the man who claimed to bring order to chaos - failed to declare a donation from himself.

2 comments:

If it wasn't so funny, you'd cry at the irony of Steve Morgan's inabilities. Given that Welsh Labour only spent £250,000 canvassing the entire Welsh population in May 2007, WTF did Hain do with the £200,000 he raised for his election campaign?